Song of the Sword by Edward Willett

Author:Edward Willett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: series, Fantasy, Merlin, Excalibur, King Arthur, Lady of the Lake, Regina, Canada, computers, quest, magic, visions, bullying, high school
ISBN: 9781550507997
Publisher: Coteau Books

~ • ~

Ariane started awake and sat up in bed.

Gray morning light filtered through the curtains. She could hear Aunt Phyllis singing “Oh What a Beautiful Morning” downstairs, accompanied by Pendragon meowing for his breakfast, but none of those things had awakened her.

What had jerked her out of sleep was a dream. As she had done the night before, she had been rushing through pipes and drains and streams and lakes, water among water, but unlike the night before, she had been unable to find any way home, anywhere where she could re-form her body, and she had felt herself growing thinner and thinner, more diluted, until she had been on the verge of vanishing completely...

She shuddered, and threw off the covers, glad for once to be getting out of bed early on a Sunday.

She pulled on her favourite old jeans and a worn-but-warm Saskatchewan Roughriders sweatshirt. She checked her e-mail. Nothing from Wally.

After a stop in the bathroom – no surprises when she touched the water – she descended to the kitchen. Aunt Phyllis, wearing a pink terrycloth bathrobe over a long flannel nightgown, turned from the counter and held out her favourite rose-patterned teapot. “Good morning, dear. You’re up earlier than usual. Would you like some tea?”

“No, thanks. I’m supposed to meet Wally at the Human Bean for a latte.” Trying to ignore Aunt Phyllis’s raised eyebrows, she hurried on, “We’re going to talk about our project.” She remembered Wally’s request. “Oh, yeah – and can I take some of those cookies you made last night?”

“Of course, dear. But dress warm! It frosted last night and the radio said it’s barely going to get above freezing today. We might even get snow.”

Ariane knew exactly how cold the night had been, having been splashing around in a prairie lake in the middle of it. But she couldn’t very well tell Aunt Phyllis that. “I will.” She gave Pendragon’s head a good scratch, then headed out.

The Human Bean was a coffee shop located in an old house seven or eight blocks from Ariane’s home. It was within easy walking distance of Oscana Collegiate and St. Dunstan’s High, which made it a favourite of the smallish coffee-drinking subset of the high school crowd...but not on a Sunday morning, when most of her fellow students were sound asleep. Ariane didn’t really care if anyone saw her with Wally, but she thought it might be better for Wally if no one saw him with her.

Oh, who am I kidding?, she thought as she headed down the front walk, carrying a dozen of Aunt Phyllis’s cookies in a brown paper bag. A thin layer of frost had made the concrete slippery, and gave it and the still slightly green grass bordering it a pale, washed-out look. Her breath rose in white clouds. The tipsy gnome under the spruce looked as cold and miserable as she had been when she’d crawled out of the lake. Wally and I couldn’t be worse social outcasts if we came down with Ebola.

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